Maurice and Jean ate half their bread, and were so fortunate as to have a mouthful of brandy with which to wash it down, thanks to the kindness of a worthy old farmer.  When the order was given to resume their advance, however, the distress throughout the convoy was extreme.  They were to halt for the night at Mouzon, and although the march was a short one, it seemed as if it would tax the men’s strength more severely than they could bear; they could not get on their feet without giving utterance to cries of pain, so stiff did their tired legs become the moment they stopped to rest.  Many removed their shoes to relieve their galled and bleeding feet.  Dysentery continued to rage; a man fell before they had gone half a mile, and they had to prop him against a wall and leave him.  A little further on two others sank at the foot of a hedge, and it was night before an old woman came along and picked them up.  All were stumbling, tottering, and dragging themselves along, supporting their forms with canes, which the Prussians, perhaps in derision, had suffered them to cut at the margin of a wood.  They were a straggling array of tramps and beggars, covered with sores, haggard, emaciated, and footsore; a sight to bring tears to the eyes of the most stony-hearted.  And the guards continued to be as brutally strict as ever; those who for any purpose attempted to leave the ranks were driven back with blows, and the platoon that brought up the rear had orders to prod with their bayonets those who hung back.  A sergeant having refused to go further, the captain summoned two of his men and instructed them to seize him, one by either arm, and in this manner the wretched man was dragged over the ground until he agreed to walk.  And what made the whole thing more bitter and harder to endure was the utter insignificance of that little pimply-faced, bald-headed officer, so insufferably consequential in his brutality, who took advantage of his knowledge of French to vituperate the prisoners in it in curt, incisive words that cut and stung like the lash of a whip.

“Oh!” Maurice furiously exclaimed, “to get the puppy in my hands and drain him of his blood, drop by drop!”

His powers of endurance were almost exhausted, but it was his rage that he had to choke down, even more than his fatigue, that was cause of his suffering.  Everything exasperated him and set on edge his tingling nerves; the harsh notes of the Prussian trumpets particularly, which inspired him with a desire to scream each time he heard them.  He felt he should never reach the end of their cruel journey without some outbreak that would bring down on him the utmost severity of the guard.  Even now, when traversing the smallest hamlets, he suffered horribly and felt as if he should die with shame to behold the eyes of the women fixed pityingly on him; what would it be when they should enter Germany, and the populace of the great cities should crowd the streets to laugh and jeer at them